“Using digital media or sleeping … that is the question”. A meta-analysis on digital media use and unhealthy sleep in adolescence

This systematic review with meta-analysis aims to examine the relation between different aspects of digital media use and sleep health patterns. Eligible studies had to be longitudinal and with adolescents' sample. Multiple search strategies were applied until January 28, 2023 in order to identify relevant research published in peer-reviewed journal articles or available grey literature. A final set of 23 studies (N = 116,431; 53.2% female; Mage at baseline = 13.4 years) were included. The quality of the studies, assessed with an adapted version of the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale, was high with a consequent low risk of bias. Meta-analytic results showed that tradi-tional media use (r =-0.33 [-0.44;-0.22]), social media use (r =-0.12 [-0.22;-0.01]), prolonged use (r = -0.06 [-0.11;-0.01]), and dysfunctional use (r =-0.19 [-0.29;-0.09]) are negatively related to adolescents' sleep health at a later time point. Conversely, sleep patterns were not related to social media use (r =-.05 [-0.10; 0.00]) and utilization time (r =-0.13 [-0.30; 0.04]), but they were related to dysfunctional use of media (r = -0.22 [-0.33; -0.10]). Overall, this review highlights the presence of a vicious cycle between digital media use and sleep health in adolescence

The Longitudinal Interplay between Sleep, Anthropometric Indices, Eating Behaviors, and Nutritional Aspects: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Sleep is fundamental for adolescents’ healthy development but undergoes dramatic changes in quantity and quality due to the conflict between biological and social rhythms. Insufficient sleep has been associated with worse physical health status and irregular eating behaviors in adolescents. This review aims to systematically synthesize the longitudinal associations between adolescents’ sleep dimensions (i.e., duration, timing, quality, and insomnia symptoms) and physical health indicators (i.e., anthropometric indices, fat percentage, and risk of obesity), eating behaviors, and nutritional aspects (i.e., type of diet related to the intake of specific foods and nutrients, amount and timing of food consumption, energy expenditure). A total of 28 longitudinal studies were included. The meta-analytic results showed that longer sleep duration, better sleep quality, and lower insomnia symptoms were associated with lower BMI and fat percentage and that shorter sleep duration (<7 h) and lower sleep quality were associated with a higher risk of obesity. Conversely, anthropometric indices were not related to sleep over time. Limited literature examined the bidirectional association between adolescents’ sleep and their eating behaviors and nutritional aspects. Such knowledge sheds new light on the role of sleep for adolescents’ health, highlighting the need to examine further the interplay between these variables

Less safety for more efficiency: Water relations and hydraulics of the invasive tree Ailanthus altissima (Mill.) Swingle compared with native Fraxinus ornus L

Invasion of natural habitats by alien trees is a threat to forest conservation. Our understanding of fundamental ecophysiological mechanisms promoting plant invasions is still limited, and hydraulic and water relation traits have been only seldom included in studies comparing native and invasive trees. We compared several leaf and wood functional and mechanistic traits in co-occurring Ailanthus altissima (Mill.) Swingle (Aa) and Fraxinus ornus L. (Fo). Aa is one of the most invasive woody species in Europe and North America, currently outcompeting several native trees including Fo. We aimed at quantifying inter-specific differences in terms of: (i) performance in resource use and acquisition; (ii) hydraulic efficiency and safety; (iii) carbon costs associated to leaf and wood construction; and (iv) plasticity of functional and mechanistic traits in response to light availability. Traits related to leaf and wood construction and drought resistance significantly differed between the two species. Fo sustained higher structural costs than Aa, but was more resistant to drought. The lower resistance to drought stress of Aa was counterbalanced by higher water transport efficiency, but possibly required mechanisms of resilience to drought-induced hydraulic damage. Larger phenotypic plasticity of Aa in response to light availability could also promote the invasive potential of the species

Insomnia in the Italian Population During Covid-19 Outbreak: A Snapshot on One Major Risk Factor for Depression and Anxiety

Objectives: One of the largest clusters of Covid-19 infections was observed in Italy. The population was forced to home confinement, exposing individuals to increased risk for insomnia, which is, in turn, associated with depression and anxiety. Through a cross-sectional online survey targeting all Italian adult population (≥18 yrs), insomnia prevalence and its interactions with relevant factors were investigated. Methods: The survey was distributed from 1st April to 4th May 2020. We collected information on insomnia severity, depression, anxiety, sleep hygiene behaviors, dysfunctional beliefs about sleep, circadian preference, emotion regulation, cognitive flexibility, perceived stress, health habits, self-report of mental disorders, and variables related to individual difference in life changes due to the pandemic's outbreak. Results: The final sample comprised 1,989 persons (38.4 ± 12.8 yrs). Prevalence of clinical insomnia was 18.6%. Results from multivariable linear regression showed that insomnia severity was associated with poor sleep hygiene behaviors [β = 0.11, 95% CI (0.07–0.14)]; dysfunctional beliefs about sleep [β = 0.09, 95% CI (0.08–0.11)]; self-reported mental disorder [β = 2.51, 95% CI (1.8–3.1)]; anxiety [β = 0.33, 95% CI (0.25–0.42)]; and depression [β = 0.24, 95% CI (0.16–0.32)] symptoms. Conclusion: An alarming high prevalence of clinical insomnia was observed. Results suggest that clinical attention should be devoted to problems of insomnia in the Italian population with respect to both prevention and treatment

The association between diurnal sleep patterns and emotions in infants and toddlers attending nursery

Background: Childcare programs often include mandatory naptime during the day. Loss of daytime sleep could lead to a moderate-to-large decrease in self-regulation, emotion processing, and learning in early childhood. Nevertheless, daytime sleep has been less accurately studied than nighttime sleep. This study aims to explore the relationship between diurnal sleep habits in nursery settings, nocturnal sleep quality, and post-nap emotional intensity in infants and toddlers. Methods: Data of 92 children (52 girls, 40 boys) aged 6 to 36 months were obtained. Sleep habits as well as positive and negative emotions were monitored by educators during nursery times through a sleep and emotion diary for two weeks. Results: Explorative analyses showed that diurnal sleep hours decreased across age groups (except for females aged 25–36 months) and that all age groups had a lower amount of nocturnal sleep than is recommended by the National Sleep Foundation. Partial correlation analysis showed significant correlation between daytime sleep onset latency and positive emotions. Mediation analyses showed that daytime napping is relevant for emotional functioning independently of nocturnal sleep quality. Conclusions: Daytime sleep in early childhood seems to be linked to the management of positive and negative emotions and could play a role in healthy development of emotional processes

A systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials evaluating the evidence base of melatonin, light exposure, exercise, and complementary and alternative medicine for patients with insomnia disorder

Insomnia is a prevalent disorder and it leads to relevant impairment in health-related quality of life. Recent clinical guidelines pointed out that Cognitive-Behavior Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) should be considered as first-line intervention. Nevertheless, many other interventions are commonly used by patients or have been proposed as effective for insomnia. These include melatonin, light exposure, exercise, and complementary and alternative medicine. Evaluation of comparable effectiveness of these interventions with first-line intervention for insomnia is however still lacking. We conducted a systematic review and network meta-analysis on the effects of these interventions. PubMed, PsycInfo, PsycArticles, MEDLINE, and CINAHL were systematically searched and 40 studies were included in the systematic review, while 36 were entered into the meta-analysis. Eight network meta-analyses were conducted. Findings support effectiveness of melatonin in improving sleep-onset difficulties and of meditative movement therapies for self-report sleep efficiency and severity of the insomnia disorder. Some support was observed for exercise, hypnotherapy, and transcranial magnetic resonance, but the number of studies for these interventions is still too small. None of the considered interventions received superior evidence to CBT-I, which should be more widely disseminated in primary care

Cross Taxon Congruence Between Lichens and Vascular Plants in a Riparian Ecosystem

Despite that congruence across taxa has been proved as an effective tool to provide insights into the processes structuring the spatial distribution of taxonomic groups and is useful for conservation purposes, only a few studies on cross-taxon congruence focused on freshwater ecosystems and on the relations among vascular plants and lichens. We hypothesized here that, since vascular plants could be good surrogates of lichens in these ecosystems, it would be possible to assess the overall biodiversity of riparian habitats using plant data only. In this frame, we explored the relationship between (a) species richness and (b) community composition of plants and lichens in a wetland area located in central Italy to (i) assess whether vascular plants are good surrogates of lichens and (ii) to test the congruence of patterns of species richness and composition among plants and lichens along an ecological gradient. The general performance of plant species richness per se, as a biodiversity surrogate of lichens, had poor results. Nonetheless, the congruence in compositional patterns between lichens and vascular plants varied across habitats and was influenced by the characteristics of the vegetation. In general, we discussed how the strength of the studied relationships could be influenced by characteristics of the data (presence/absence vs. abundance), by the spatial scale, and by the features of the habitats. Overall, our data confirm that the more diverse and structurally complex the vegetation is, the more diverse are the lichen communities it hosts

Scientific maps should reach everyone: The cblindplot R package to let colour blind people visualise spatial patterns

Maps represent powerful tools to show the spatial variation of a variable in a straightforward manner. A crucial aspect in map rendering for its interpretation by users is the gamut of colours used for displaying data. One part of this problem is linked to the proportion of the human population that is colour blind and, therefore, highly sensitive to colour palette selection. The aim of this paper is to present the cblindplot R package and its founding function - cblind.plot() - which enables colour blind people to just enter an image in a coding workflow, simply set their colour blind deficiency type, and immediately get as output a colour blind friendly plot. We will first describe in detail colour blind problems, and then show a step by step example of the function being proposed. While examples exist to provide colour blind people with proper colour palettes, in such cases (i) the workflow include a separate import of the image and the application of a set of colour ramp palettes and (ii) albeit being well documented, there are many steps to be done before plotting an image with a colour blind friendly ramp palette. The function described in this paper, on the contrary, allows to (i) automatically call the image inside the function without any initial import step and (ii) explicitly refer to the colour blind deficiency type being experienced, to further automatically apply the proper colour ramp palette

rasterdiv ‐ an Information Theory tailored R package for measuring ecosystem heterogeneity from space: to the origin and back

Ecosystem heterogeneity has been widely recognized as a key ecological indicator of several ecological functions, diversity patterns and change, metapopulation dynamics, population connectivity or gene flow. In this paper, we present a new R package—rasterdiv—to calculate heterogeneity indices based on remotely sensed data. We also provide an ecological application at the landscape scale and demonstrate its power in revealing potentially hidden heterogeneity patterns. The rasterdiv package allows calculating multiple indices, robustly rooted in Information Theory, and based on reproducible open-source algorithms

Notulae to the Italian native vascular flora: 8

In this contribution, new data concerning the distribution of native vascular flora in Italy are presented. It includes new records, confirmations, exclusions, and status changes to the Italian administrative regions for taxa in the genera Ajuga, Chamaemelum, Clematis, Convolvulus, Cytisus, Deschampsia, Eleocharis, Epi- pactis, Euphorbia, Groenlandia, Hedera, Hieracium, Hydrocharis, Jacobaea, Juncus, Klasea, Lagurus, Leersia, Linum, Nerium, Onopordum, Persicaria, Phlomis, Polypogon, Potamogeton, Securigera, Sedum, Soleirolia, Stachys, Umbilicus, Valerianella, and Vinca. Nomenclatural and distribution updates, published elsewhere, and corrigenda are provided as Suppl. material